The definitive book on Australian punk and post-punk music, long unavailable, now reissued in a much-expanded new edition with 175 photos. Stranded offers the inside story of the emergence of the Saints, the Birthday Party, the Laughing Clowns, the Go-Betweens, Nick Cave, the Moodists, the Scientists, and many more great Australian bands, told by a writer who witnessed it all first-hand.

“Much misunderstood on its original release in 1996, Stranded is just as contentious and compulsive nearly a quarter-century on. One part stoned memoir, nine parts hard-boiled history, it walks the low road and back streets, charting along the way a near-forgotten period of Australian music from punk to grunge.” ANDREW STAFFORD

“The appeal of the book lies in seeing Walker juggle narrative and economic history, biography and autobiography, interview and prose . . . [as he] traces Australian music’s transition from a provincial cargo cult to a world power.” THE AGE

“What makes Walker’s book so useful is that he writes not only of the musicians, but also of the venues, the promoters, the record stores and the community radio stations that together carved out a space within culture where it could turn back on itself and become an art. The ethos of this art was ‘do it yourself’ and Walker’s book can be read as a field manual for doing it for yourself in any medium, not just music.” McKENZIE WARK

Clinton Walker is a Sydney-based writer the Sun-Herald has called ‘our best chronicler of Australian grass-roots culture.’ Born in Bendigo in 1957, he has published ten books, worked extensively as a journalist and for television. His greatest hits include Inner City Sound (1981), Highway to Hell (1994), Buried Country (2000), Golden Miles (2005) and History Is Made at Night (2012). After publishing his own fanzines in the late ’70s, Walker established a colourful reputation in the ’80s freelancing for newspapers and magazines such as RAM, Rolling Stone, Roadrunner, and the Age. He was a co-writer and principal interviewer on ABC-TV’s hit 2001 Oz-rockumentary series Long Way to the Top, and between 1999 and 2003 was co-presenter of the late-night live music program Studio 22. His most recent book is The Suburban Songbook, published through his own imprint, GoldenTone. More details on his website.